


divine by fire

by theformerone



Series: tumblr prompts [24]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Prophetic Visions, mild panic attack, yeah we gay keep scrolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-14 15:44:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: This maiden in the flames never changed. Always her high cheekbones, always her dark eyes, wrapped in a cloak of blue fire. Shining there, in the corner of Dany's eye, moving too quickly to be followed before the flames end as they began, and Dany is lost again.from krchov's Daensa High Priestess prompt on tumblr





	divine by fire

Daenerys I Targaryen does not startle easily. She has seen too much for her few years. She has not survived this long by looking away from horror. She has always, instinctively known that her heart must be stalwart against weakness. Her calm must be impeccable.

Not only because Viserys was only cruel when he was enraged, not only because there were more Mad Kings in her bloodline than good ones. But because if Dany faltered, fear would win, and eat her. 

Her hands are shaking now as she removes her gloves, and she wonders why she is so cold. She has always been warm, even in winter, the few times that she's seen it. Viserys called it the blood of the dragon in them (stronger in him than in her, of course), keeping them warm. Dragons did not freeze. They had fire in them. Fire and blood. 

The blood is gone from Dany's face. She can feel it. She knows because this is the first time she's ever felt it. And she knows from the way Missandei looks at her, concern big in her wide brown eyes. 

"Khaleesi, - "

Dany feels the tremor seize her wrist, and she knows that she is lost. Her breath comes quickly to her now, too quickly, and she feels her knees threaten to buckle beneath her. 

But Missandei is there, laying her gentle hands on Dany's arm, helping her to the bed. She has never been so grateful for this dear friend, than when Missandei kneels at her feet, and takes Dany's hands into her own. 

"Your hands are so cold," Missandei says. "And you look like you've seen a ghost. I'll stoke the fire - ,"

Dany snatches Missandei's wrist in the same instant, "No," comes out of her mouth. 

She sees something like fear flicker into Missandei's gaze, and Dany loosens her grip immediately. She holds Missandei's hand in her own, and presses the back of her hand against her own cheek. 

"Don't make the fire bigger," she says. "I've had enough of fire."

"Your Grace - ,"

"I never told you." 

That stops Missandei's next protest from falling out of her mouth. She looks up into Dany's face, and tries to find something there. Dany isn't sure what. 

"You know I am the Unburnt, Missandei," she says. The heat of her counselor's hand is just enough against her cheek. Much duller than stoking the fire. There was some comfort in that. "I walked into my husband's funeral pyre with my children to die with him, and when morning came - ,"

She can see it now. How she'd seen it then. How she'd seen it every single time. Visions in the fire. Flickers of something, of someone, always out of her reach. 

The first time Daenerys walked into the fire, she - There had been - 

She had wondered if she was mad after. If she was having hallucinations, if the thorough inbreeding in her family line had tainted her, just as it had tainted nearly every Targaryen before her. Little visions weren't so bad, in the scheme of things, were they? It was better than liking the smell of a man cooking alive, or feeding her siblings to her dragons. 

Dany could never have made her children eat Viserys. He would have upset their stomachs.

"I have walked out of blazes that would kill any man living."

"You have, Your Grace - ,"

"And I have seen things. In those blazes."

A woman. The same woman, every time. With hair as red as fire and blood. With eyes like chips of Valyrian steel, and skin white as core flame. Dany has seen her.

The first time, she had thought perhaps, this was a normal part of standing in an inferno. Weren't you bound to see something? Your mind making patterns in the flames, like one's eye makes patterns in darkness. But the patterns are never the same. The eye is tricky that way. 

This maiden in the flames never changed. Always her high cheekbones, always her dark eyes, wrapped in a cloak of blue fire. Shining there, in the corner of Dany's eye, moving too quickly to be followed before the flames end as they began, and Dany is lost again. 

"I had dreamt once," Dany says, "that if I took my eggs with me into the fire, they would hatch, and dragons would roam the skies again."

Missandei smiles, doing her best to be encouraging, and Dany loves her for it. So much that her heart could burst.

"Your dreams come true, my queen."

"Another one has."

Missandei's brows furrow, and she leans back on her haunches to take in the information.

"Who?"

Dany had known as soon as she had dismounted her horse that this woman surrounded by snow and steel, cold as the ice that had birthed her, was the woman that had flickered in and out of Dany's visions in fire. 

"Sansa Stark," she says, and she can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Missandei purses her lips, and Dany can almost see the way her brain tries to work out of the Stark woman has done anything to cause such concern. "I think she means to see me burn."

 _'But gods,'_ Dany had thought then. ' _She is beautiful.'_ And what a beautiful way to burn.

Missandei gives her hand a solid squeeze, her gaze going from calculating to resolute in a moment. 

"She will not see it done."

"Not with fire, maybe," she returns. "Cold leaves a kind of burn, doesn't it?"

"But you are the blood of the dragon, my queen," Missandei insists, and Dany feels so terribly sorry for dragging Missandei into this first taste of what might destroy Dany's conquest and all of them with it. Perhaps visions weren't just visions, when they turned out to be the sister of the former King in the North. How is Missandei supposed to react to Dany shaking after a brief audience, demanding not to be warmed? "The cold will never touch you."

Dany bites the inside of her cheek hard. Then harder still, carves her top canine into the soft pink flesh, until she draws blood. And when she tastes it, she shuts her eyes and takes in a deep, slow breath. She finds her calm, fights for it, refuses to be hysterical any longer before Missandei gets it into her mind to talk to Torgo Nudho about their queen's state of mind, and how many all the cold, and the stress of losing Viserion had done too much damage already.

Dany breathes. Breathes as if she is like her children, and when she exhales, she will breathe out fire as they do.

"You're right, Missandei," she says, giving her counselor's hand a gentle squeeze of her own. "Maybe I'm just a bit tired."

Dany can see the suspicion behind the implacable calm of Missandei's current expression. It is very easy to read the people that love you most, Dany has learned.

"I need rest," Dany says, "before I see anyone again, I need rest. Will you put those logs on the fire, Missandei? And sit with me. Sit with me and tell me what you think of the northmen."

Missandei rises to obey, and Dany knows she will have to do better to quell her concerns in the future. Eating well at dinner would be good, and so would having a good talk with Sansa, where Missandei could see. It ought to be easy. Easy as facing a vision that has been haunting her before the name Stark held any weight on her mind.

Before she suddenly preferred to be cold, over hot.

**Author's Note:**

> did u notice that dany thinks sansa is pretty because she's cold :) im gay so are they!


End file.
